Longtime SF drinking spot Lefty’s finds new home, hopes...

1of 47The Deutscher Musikverein of San Francisco plays outside Lefty O’Doul’s final party at the 333 Geary St. location at Union Square Feb. 1, 2017.Photo: Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle 2017

2of 47Nick Bovis has moved his former Lefty O’Doul’s from its venerable spot at Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf, where its new identity is Lefty’s Ballpark Buffet and Cafe.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

3of 47Paul Fontes at the new keyboard at Lefty’s Ballpark Buffet and Cafe at Fisherman’s Wharf.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

6of 47A mural by Mario Chiodo of notable Bay Area personalities including the late Mayor Ed Lee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein adorns the wall at Lefty’s Ballpark Buffet and Cafe.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

7of 47Tom Escher, neighbor of Lefty’s and chairman and president of the Red and White Fleet, selects an item from the buffet at Lefty’s Ballpark Buffet and Cafe.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

8of 47The a statue of Marilyn Monroe was one of the pieces of memorabilia at the old Lefty O’Doul’s that are the subject of legal action and won’t be moved to the new location.Photo: Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle 2017

9of 47.Photo: John Storey / Special to the Chronicle

10of 47Shed
Shed in Healdsburg will shut its doors at the end of 2018, closing the book on a charmed five-year run for Sonoma County’s most ambitious combination restaurant, marketplace, event space and fermentation bar.
Photo: Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle

Farmerbrown, the city’s most celebrated black-owned restaurant, closed Nov. 25, 2018 after 13 years in San Francisco’s Tenderloin.Photo: Stephanie Wright Hession / Special to the Chronicle 2012

13of 47Albona Ristorante Istriano
San Francisco’s Albona Ristorante Istriano will close at the end of 2018, after 30 years in North Beach. Photo: Yelp

14of 47Stones Throw
Open since 2014, Stones Throw plans to close Jan. 1, 2019. The decision to close resulted from a city-mandated retrofit at Stones Throw "which would force the restaurant to be inoperable for months."Photo: John Storey / Special to the Chronicle

15of 47Contigo
Contigo closed their doors on Nov. 17, 2018 after nearly 10 years of service in Noe Valley. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

17of 47Brown Sugar Kitchen
Tanya Holland closed her restaurant Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland on May 18. The restautant was temporarily opened in June as Brown Sugar Test Kitchen but Holland ultimately decided to sell the property to chefs of color, the Chronicle's Justin Phillips wrote. Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle

18of 47La Victoria BakeryLa Victoria Bakery, one of the first Mexican-owned businesses in the Mission, closed Oct. 9, 2018 after 67 years in business. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

19of 47Zarzuela
The Spanish restaurant in Russian Hill closed in November after 24 years. The executive chef of nearby Frascati plans to open Abrazo, a Mediterranean restaurant with Spanish influences, in the former Zarzuela space.Photo: Randi Lynn Beach, Special to The Chronicle

20of 47Camino
The Oakland restaurant said they plan to close late December 2018 after 10 years in business. They said that it was an idea in the works for about a year after struggling "more often than not with higher operating costs and finding staff." Photo: Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

21of 47Redd
Redd, one of Napa Valley’s pioneering fine dining restaurants for 13 years, closed Oct. 7, 2018. Chef-owner Richard Reddington attributed the closure to a number of factors, but largely, said it was a personal decision. Photo: John Storey / Special to the Chronicle

22of 47The ChairmanThe Chairman closed its brick-and-mortar location in the Tenderloin August 2018 after 3 years of serving up its well-loved pork buns and rice bowls on Larkin Street. The business will continue to operate its food trucks. Photo: Ann S. / Yelp

23of 47Brennan's
Brennan’s, the decades-old, family-owned Berkeley hangout, will close on Sept. 15. Brennan’s is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.Photo: By Lance Iversen / SFC

24of 47Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe
The Oakland branch of Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe closed July 26, bringing an end to its seven-year run in the space connected to the Fox Theater.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

26of 47Dirty Water
Dirty Water closed its doors July 3, about 3 years after its owners said they spent more than $4 million to open it in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood.Photo: Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle

27of 47The Fremont Diner
The beloved Sonoma diner announced its closure in June. Photo: James Tensuan, Special to The Chronicle

28of 47Crystal Jade
The four-year-old Cantonese restaurant in the Embarcadero Four building closed to the public on June 30. Photo: John Storey / Special to the Chronicle

36of 47Elmwood Cafe
After a 2015 controversy involving Bay Area comedian W. Kamau Bell was reignited amid a national outcry following the arrest of two black men at Philadelphia Starbucks, the Berkeley cafe closed its doors in April.Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

46of 47Dynasty Chinese Seafood Restaurant
This Cupertino business formerly located at Vallco Shopping Mall closed on December 1. Demolition of Vallco Shopping Mall has commenced and plans to further demolish the area will begin early next year. Photo: Photo by Alex W. on Yelp

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Two years after getting booted from its historic Union Square home, the baseball-themed hofbrau Lefty O’Doul’s will celebrate its reopening Tuesday in a new home across from Pier 39 at Fisherman’s Wharf.

But while the new Lefty’s is only 2 miles from the old Lefty’s, it’s a world away in terms of character and targeted clientele.

Gone are the dark, boozy piano bar, the redwood-paneled walls, the big, comfortable green Naugahyde booths patched with duct tape. There are no bartenders bantering at the plank or tourists singing Billy Joel tunes around the piano.

The new, 20,000-square-foot Lefty’s — it’s now called Lefty’s Ballpark Buffet and Cafe — is three times the size of the old place. The downstairs resembles an airport terminal, a big open space with a 3,500-square-foot Giants Dugout store flowing into a Starbucks-affiliated cafe.

Lefty’s opening

The opening, toy drive kickoff and parade start at 1 p.m. Tuesday at 145 Jefferson St. in San Francisco.

Read More

Upstairs is a self-serve, all-you-can-eat buffet with more than a dozen hot tables filled with pizza, pasta, salad, and Mexican and Chinese items. There’s still a carving station with turkey and prime rib and a big bowl of horseradish. The lunch buffet costs $14.99; dinner is $21.99. Kids eat for $7.99, and children under 3 are free.

The new Lefty’s is next door to Madame Tussauds wax museum and across the street from Boudin Bakery’s flagship. The recorded voice of baseball radio personality Marty Lurie is piped out onto the sidewalk, “The perfect place for dinner when you and your friend and family members can’t decide what you’re in the mood for.”

As a business, Lefty’s has never shied away from PR stunts to gain attention — and Tuesday’s celebration will be no exception. There will a short parade of police officers on horses and motorcycles. There will be politicians, including Mayor London Breed, riding in antique convertibles. And the Archbishop Riordan High School marching band will be tooting trombones and tubas.

The grand opening will mark the start of the Lefty’s annual holiday toy drive, a 19-year tradition that didn’t happen last year because Lefty’s didn’t have a home. Two years ago, more than 13,000 toys were collected for needy kids.

Owner Nick Bovis said the changes are a reflection of the realities of Fisherman’s Wharf. While there is actually more foot traffic on Jefferson Street than the Geary Street location — 17 million people visit Fisherman’s Wharf each year — those walking by are mostly families with children. The Union Square business traveler who kept the old Lefty’s bar bustling is not wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf looking for a drink.

Bovis is hoping to do kids’ birthday parties, PTA gatherings and Little League baseball celebrations.

“Fisherman’s Wharf is more clean and family-friendly,” Bovis said. “You can’t tie your kids up outside while you do your drinking.”

Still, Bovis is hoping to attract some of the old Lefty’s regulars. He has a keyboard — but not a piano — he can set up for sing-alongs. Black-and-white murals both upstairs and downstairs show generations of Bay Area ballplayers alongside notable San Franciscans like Breed, Robin Williams, Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Garcia and Glide Memorial Church’s Rev. Cecil Williams.

“If you went to the old Lefty’s when it was empty, it was scary. It looked like a sinking ship. There was no character to it. It was old and run-down,” Bovis said.

He’s replaced many of the old photos and other baseball memorabilia at the old Lefty’s — none of it was original — with new stuff that evokes the history of baseball in San Francisco.

That helps the new spot.

“When it’s full of people, the atmosphere is really good,” Bovis said. “It’s all about people making the atmosphere.”

Jon Rochmis, a regular at the old Lefty’s, stopped by to try out the new location. He was not impressed. The fact that Lefty’s didn’t keep the full name was “the only positive thing I can say.” He missed the long oak bar, where he watched baseball games, as well as the hofbrau with hot turkey sandwiches.

“No bar, no hofbrau, no bueno,” he said. “At least when the Gold Dust moved from Union Square to the Wharf, the physical look was retained. Lefty’s kept neither the look nor the feel.” The Gold Dust, which is also owned by Bovis, was ejected from its Powell Street location a few years ago, replaced by a chain clothing store.

Tom O’Doul, a cousin of Lefty O’Doul — the major-league player and longtime San Francisco Seals manager who started the business in 1958 — said the new Lefty’s “hasn’t got the character of the old place, but it has a lot more class.”

“It’s pretty spiffy,” he said. “The only drawback for me is that from the sidewalk, you can only see the Dugout store and the Starbucks. You have to go upstairs to see the restaurant.”

The move to Fisherman’s Wharf was the latest volley in the feud between Bovis and businessman Jon Handlery.

Handlery was Bovis’ landlord at the Geary Street Lefty’s and the Powell Street Gold Dust. He evicted the Gold Dust in 2012 to make way for an Express chain store. After a lawsuit, which Bovis lost, the bar moved to Jefferson Street, a few doors down from the new Lefty’s.

When Bovis vacated the old Lefty’s after a lease dispute, Handlery sued him to prevent him from taking the restaurant’s baseball memorabilia, fixtures and furniture, and even the name. That suit is pending.

The biggest difference, Bovis said, is that the new space is up to code. The roof won’t leak, the men’s room won’t be in the basement and the kitchen is modern.

While it’s not the same, some of the old customers have embraced the new Lefty’s.

Stefano Cassolato, who went to the old Lefty’s four times a week, was enjoying the buffet on a recent Wednesday.

“It’s a new era,” he said. “The kids run around. The spirit lives on.”

J.K. Dineen joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 2014, focusing on real estate development for the metro group, a beat that includes land use, housing, neighborhoods, the port, retail, and city parks. Prior to joining The Chronicle, he worked for the San Francisco Business Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Daily News, and a bunch of newspapers in his native Massachusetts, including the Salem Evening News and the MetroWest Daily News.

He is the author of two books: Here Tomorrow, about historic preservation in California (Heyday, 2013); and the forthcoming High Spirits (Heyday 2015), a book of essays about legacy bars of San Francisco.

A graduate of Macalester College, Dineen was a member of Teach For America’s inaugural class and taught sixth grade in Brooklyn, N.Y.